


affiliative approaches

by systemscheck



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, How to Train Your Fighter Jet, Minor Original Character(s), Other, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 16:58:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21431629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/systemscheck/pseuds/systemscheck
Summary: “A minibot?” The green mech peered down at Tailgate, incredulous. “Let’s hope you don’t set off anyone’s prey drive.”(Tailgate thought that cleaning animal enclosures would be the dirtiest part of being assigned to the Autobot Aerial Corps’ sanitation unit. Tailgate thought wrong.)
Relationships: Cyclonus & Tailgate
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	affiliative approaches

Hoist watched with an enormous sense of relief as a yellow pickup truck trundled up the slope before stopping to transform and stand before him. It had been several hours since he’d called the wildlife rescue hotline, and his anxiety had only mounted while waiting for the help they promised to send. 

There was a downed jet at the bottom of the ravine he was hiking through.

This solo trip to the Manganese Mountains was supposed to to let him enjoy scenic landscapes and total solitude, not come across a truly horrific scene that made Hoist reconsider his choice of vacation. That said, it was really fortunate that the jet had been found by him. Hoist set about winching up the animal posthaste only to realise that it was way too hurt to do more than hiss weakly after he’d detached it from his cables. 

Staying there and listening to the jet suffer was a terrible idea but then again he couldn’t imagine simply abandoning it in its weakened state, unable to defend itself against other wild animals. Hoist ultimately decided to wait nearby, switching on his propane heater as the sun went down and the temperature dropped to inhospitable levels. When veterinarian finally arrived, it was cold enough to freeze coolant. She did not need to ask before Hoist was leading the way over to where the jet was slumped sideways on the ground. Her optics dimmed as they drew closer. Hoist made a face in sympathy. Even for someone who hardly thought of himself as an animal lover, it was impossible to remain impassive when faced by one that was so badly damaged. 

The jet’s deep purple armour was marred by numerous gashes caked with dried energon. It had likely spent days trapped inside the gorge, bleeding out and starving. Hoist had tried feeding the jet one of his high-density fuel bars but it ignored every attempt, possibly because refined fuel wasn’t suitable for animal consumption. Being unable to do anything but keep company with the poor creature had been driving him crazy.

One of its legs had broken clean off just under the knee. If not for how the animal snarled every time he tried to get closer, Hoist would have liked to use the nanofibre mesh in his backpack on that injury. It must have been caused by the immediate impact when the plane had crashed. At the very least the wound had stopped leaking unidentifiable fluids, which had stained the ground around the jet a dark colour.

Earlier on, Hoist had thought of climbing down to the place where he’d spotted the jet to try searching for and retrieving that lost part. Observing dislodged pebbles plummet several kilometres downwards as he scrambled to find a foothold had quickly dissuaded him. The canyons in this area were famous for their overwhelming beauty and also being the source of an equally overwhelming number of missing persons cases. Those who knew about Hoist’s trip to the Mountains had done their best to remind him of the latter fact, although at that time he had dismissed their worries. He liked how the off-season had much lower traffic, and despite the relatively worse weather had planned to trek there for two whole weeks. Still, he was only adventurous, not suicidal, and knew that there was no point in risking his life like that. The last thing Hoist wanted was to experience becoming a broken wreck as well. No matter how much money he’d spent on a distress beacon, Hoist very much preferred to have his chassis remain fully intact, especially when alone in the middle of nowhere. That a wildlife centre operated in this area was the only thing preventing the jet from certain death.

He stood well away as the vet approached the animal, which predictably bared its fangs and growled. Undeterred, she located its dorsal port and did something that made its optics flicker and cause the massive frame to go lax. The jet stopped twitching and watched dully as she busied herself poking at it with all sorts of strange and frightening-looking instruments, before running a handheld scanner over the nasty break in its leg. It looked away when she carefully probed the area with a pair of pliers. Hoist winced when she tugged out a large jagged piece of debris and laid it aside, splattering pink liquid everywhere.

The jet barely reacted. Perhaps the pain had finally gotten to it. Over the last hour the animal’s laboured ventilations had become increasingly slow and shallow, as if it were gasping its final breaths. Hoist felt a little dizzy himself. What if the damage was fatal and he had gone to all that trouble for nothing?

“Can you save it?”

The vet didn’t reply until she had finished sealing the stump. She looked up and regarded Hoist with irritation. “Yeah, I got it stabilised for now. But only a full repairbay can get it flying again.”

Hoist nodded. He shouldn’t have doubted the expert.

Standing up, the vet stretched and moved to drag over the trailer she had brought along. Hoist rushed to her side to help, and then the both of them hauled the jet inside the holding crate attached. It was a tight fit, but the animal was in no condition to resist anyway. Thanks to whatever she had done earlier the animal didn’t even attempt to take a swipe at either of them, and without too much trouble they managed to maneuver it into position. Hoist went to collect the vet’s scattered tools and equipment as she went about helping it settle down, a process that involved plugging her datapad into its primitive dorsal socket again. After packing up the toolkit as neatly as he could manage, Hoist picked it up and walked back to where she was still lingering beside the trailer.

“What a beast,” the vet remarked admiringly. She patted the jet’s flank. It turned to level a crimson glare at her through the bars of the holding crate, even though just keeping its head up was obviously taking considerable effort. Hoist wondered just how much more effective a sedation routine had to be when it was for a creature heavier than three of him. Engines grumbling, the jet reluctantly conceded to their effects and sank offline.

“Yeah. I’ve never seen this kind before,” Hoist said, even though it wasn’t like he had a wealth of experience around these things. He was a city dweller through and through, and the few fliers he recognized were the ones who wheeled around high towers, too far away for Hoist to make out anything more than their tiny silhouettes. Still, he could tell that the rescued jet was completely unlike any of those. Maybe it was only native to the Manganese Mountains. Curved armour plates and angular silver horns certainly made it look very exotic.

Hoist warily eyed those horns. Despite the patina of scratches and dull spots all over its armour and how it had to crouch awkwardly inside the undersized crate, one could not help but sense that this was a highly lethal creature. He had been extremely conscious of the danger while attempting to coax it into accepting a crumbled fuel bar, hesitantly using a stick to push the food towards it. After all, those claws had almost sheared through his high-tensile steel cable as he was pulling it up.

The vet smiled as he returned her toolkit. Caught up in the wonder of the moment, she paid zero attention to how their hands were gruesomely stained with energon.

“This is new to me, too,” she continued. “What if it’s a really rare breed that people have totally forgotten about?”

Hoist hardly shared the same degree of enthusiasm but he had to confess there was something enjoyable about doing a good deed, and especially with somebody like that. He grinned back at her and rested a hand on the crate.

“Sure you can manage going back alone?”

Hoist had trouble lifting the jet by himself, and he was rated for industrial work. The vet was planning on hauling it across mountains along with a heavy-duty trailer.

She shrugged. “I’m a four-wheel drive.”

“Ah,” Hoist replied lamely, trying to hide his disappointment. “That’s really nice.”

“Well, we could always use more volunteers at the centre,” she said. “I’ll be happy to see you around there.” They exchanged comm codes and then she was off, driving away with speed in a billowing cloud of dust. Hoist waved as the truck rapidly receded into the distance. Thankfully, it was getting too dark for anyone to see his stupidly wide smile.

He made camp. Hoist shivered happily as he laid out the insulation sheet, thinking about how this could be turning out to be something great.


End file.
